Bulletin 273 - December 2024

On November 22, the UN Climate Change Conference COP29 ended in Baku, Azerbaijan. At one of its sessions, Brazilian authorities spoke about the next one, COP30, to be held in the Amazon region. They did so in front of a mega photo of untouched Amazon forest. However, away from Baku’s spotlights, the reality of many Amazonian peoples is one of despair at the forest being consumed by forest fires.

Initiatives by NGOs and corporations with a focus on the “gender issue” that distort and depoliticize the feminist struggle are more and more common. The various examples of “purplewashing” do not tackle the structural causes of oppression over women, perpetuating systemic inequalities within the capitalist system.

In the province of East Kalimantan, the World Bank is supporting the Indonesian government’s first jurisdictional REDD programme. International conservationist NGOs, TNC and WWF, have been playing a key role in the preparation and execution of the programme. While they proclaim it to be a “success story” (1), this programme is full of contradictions. Available in Indonesian.

The just-released “Mouila Declaration” is a message of resistance, solidarity and unity from communities and grassroots organisations of the Informal Alliance against the expansion of Industrial Monocultures.

“We declare our opposition to the mining project” - that is the message from the community of Sainte Luce to QIT-Madagascar Minerals (QMM) and Malagasy authorities. The community declared their opposition to the company's intentions to mine ilmenite – a mineral used in white paint and plastics, among other products – as this would destroy their lands and fishing grounds. They made their position clear in a letter and video testimonies, which they delivered to the Rio Tinto subsidiary and authorities in December of 2023.

The proposal to “close the biodiversity finance gap” does not address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss. Instead, it intensifies the commodification of nature, which allows the corporate and financial sector to profit from the environmental crisis. Andre Standing, member of the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements (CFFA), offers an analysis of this situation in this interview, which was published by Acción Ecológica during the COP16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The article deals with the creation of REDD+ as a “conservation fad”, which served as a parameter for the channeling of resources from investment banks and governments of the global north, immediately also arousing interest among corporations of the food and consumer goods sectors.

Meticulous research conducted by the New Social Cartography of the Amazon Project in conjunction with traditional communities in the upper Acará River area over the course of five years has resulted in the dossier “Indígenas Turiwara Tembé no alto rio Acará: conflitos étnicos e territoriais”. This outstanding work describes in detail the history and resistance struggles of traditional communities in this part of Pará, proving that the Turiwara Tembé belong in the territory they have demanded for many years.

Climate change is not a natural disaster. It is the result of decisions, practices and policies adopted and maintained by a relatively small number of actors, primarily for their own interests. Its consequences, however, are global and have the most significant impact in places and on communities that bear the least responsibility for creating the crisis. Climate change is embedded in the history of colonialism and capitalism. It is important to reflect on this history in order to better understand the emergence and promotion of the carbon market. Without such context, issues risk being addressed technocratically rather than with justice and equity as the essential framing.

COP29 approval of Article 6.4 is “opening the floodgates for a global carbon market that will have devastating impacts on communities in the Global South”

In her latest book, Cassandra, a long-standing activist against the carbon markets, puts together important information about the “overdose” of false solutions to the current climate emergency. Who is responsible for the current crisis? What have they done to get rid of their responsibility while making profits and destroying peoples’ livelihoods? By presenting past and recent cases, the book provides an anti-colonial analysis of the environmental crises and highlights Indigenous and forest-dependent peoples’ resistance. The book is available in English for free here.